Gas releases from salt

Observations on vapor pressure in SPR caverns : sources.

“…This part of the program is to assure that the deliverability criteria can be met. These analyses routinely determine the bubble point pressure (BBP), the oil-to-gas ratio (GOR), and the spectrum of components using the TVP-95 and TVP-2000 instrument systems [3][4][5][6][7]. The spectral analysis by gas chromatograph (GC) is usually made of the off-gas obtained during the test.…”

“…Appendices of the report examined potential creep contributions to gas intrusion, origins of the gas, etc. Later an extensive analysis of "outbursts" [4], which are the explosive release of gases from voids in the salt, usually associated with mines, was published. This was followed in 2003 [5] by a database with additional measurement data and modeling analysis of gasification and degas in all SPR caverns.…”

“…(1) Production and transportation sources [3], (2) Geological sources from inherently entrapped inclusions in the salt dome either via hydrological flow, from release by salt solutioning (leaching), or creep damage release [3,4], (3) Enhanced gas generation within the pressurized stored oil by geothermal heating from the salt dome [6,7] or generation by anaerobic bacterial processes [3]. We will discuss each of these sources in the context of the previous analyses, adding some new aspects, where appropriate.…”

“…The gases may include methane, ethane, propane, benzene, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, light hydrocarbons, and potentially hydrogen sulphide, etc. [4], but most often are methane and nitrogen [11]. The values often given for the domal salt content of these pores is on the order of 1.0 to 5.0 % (+/-1.0 %) by volume [3].…”

“…Much of the earlier work of gas transport was summarized by Ehgartner et al [4] and included measurements of percolation through salt and capillary transport. These studies gave a variety of results, as would be expected.…”